Ohio child cancers confound parents, investigators by John Seewer

Associated Press

CLYDE, Ohio – Every time his kids cough, Dave Hisey's mind starts to race. Is it cancer? Is it coming back?

His oldest daughter, diagnosed with leukemia nearly five years ago when she was 13, is in remission. His 12-year-old son has another year of chemotherapy for a different type of leukemia. And his 9-year-old daughter is scared she'll be next.

Hisey is not alone in fearing the worst. Just about every mom and dad in this rural northern Ohio town gets nervous whenever their children get a sinus infection or a stomachache lingers. It's hard not to panic since mysterious cancers have sickened dozens of area children in recent years.

Since 1996, 35 children have been diagnosed — and three have died — of brain tumors, leukemia, lymphoma, and other forms of cancer — all within a 12-mile wide circle that includes two small towns and farmland just south of Lake Erie. With many of the diagnoses coming between 2002 and 2006, state health authorities declared it a cancer cluster, saying the number and type of diagnoses exceed what would be expected statistically for so small a population over that time.

"All you think about is what happened to these kids," said Donna Hisey, 43, the mother whose family has been devastated by cancer. "Is it gone? Or is it still here? What is it?!"

After three years of exhaustive investigation, no cause is known. Investigators have tested wells and public drinking water, sampled groundwater and air near factories and checked homes, schools and industries for radiation.

They also set up a network of air monitors across eastern Sandusky County, finding cleaner air than in most places around Ohio, the health department said.

Nothing unusual was detected. Not even a hint.

"From the very beginning, we've said the vast majority of childhood cancer causes aren't known," said Robert Indian, the state health department's chief of comprehensive cancer control. He'll soon release yet another investigative report.

Without any answers as to what's attacking their children, parents are left to question whether living within a known cancer cluster area is endangering their kids. Perhaps surprisingly, only a handful have moved away.

"It's in the back of everybody's mind," said Scott Mahler, who has two healthy young sons. "Are you going to risk your children's lives by living here?"

Eight children were diagnosed with cancer in and near Clyde between 2002-2006, nearly four times the number that state health experts figure is normal.

Ohio health investigators converged on the town of just 6,000 people halfway between Cleveland and Toledo and home to the Whirlpool Corp.'s largest washing machine factory.

What they found was worse than anyone suspected. The cancers affecting victims age 19 and younger included neighboring townships and much of the nearby town of Fremont.

One in five of the cancer cases were related to the brain or central nervous system, matching national rates, according to the American Cancer Society.

The diagnoses peaked in 2006, when nine children were told they, too, had cancer. Since then, there have been four new cases. The most recent came in the spring this year, when a 7-year-old girl was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer of the body's connective tissues.

At first, investigators focused just on Clyde, where social calendars revolve around school, sports and church. Most families have been here for generations. It's the kind of place where teens can't wait to leave — only to find they can't wait to come back to start a family.

Seeing their children afflicted by unexplained illnesses has strengthened the bond among parents and neighbors instead of scaring them away.

"Even if it would've happened to my family, I can't imagine where else I would go to get the support I needed," said Melanie Overmyer, an English and journalism teacher at Clyde High School.

"People in neighboring towns say 'I can't believe you still live there,'" said the mother of two. "You can't pick up your life and move every time there's something that scares you."

Enrollment numbers at area schools haven't dropped and real estate agents say they haven't encountered anyone who doesn't want to look for homes in the area or is desperate to get out.

"Clyde is small enough that we would really know if that was happening," said City Manager Paul Fiser.

Ohio health and environmental regulators have speculated the cause was environmental and may have come and gone — maybe a chemical from a factory or a dump that polluted the air or water.

Air and water samples have not revealed any concerns around the Whirlpool plant or the Vickery Environmental waste site just outside town, where hazardous chemicals are injected into rock a half-mile below ground.

And in September, investigators said they found no radiation from homes, schools, or industries to link to the illnesses, ruling out the Davis-Besse nuclear plant, about 20 miles from Clyde, and NASA's former nuclear reactor near Sandusky as a possible source.

Doctors also have been vigilant, making sure they're not missing any signs or symptoms in young patients. And parents are more likely to bring their kids in for checkups instead of waiting for an illness to go away.

"You still have to treat common things first," said Dr. Daniel Herring, who has a family practice in Clyde.

"But it's definitely one of the things we worry about more."

What's stumped investigators is the lack of any common threads among the children — all of them don't live in the same neighborhood, go to the same school or drink from the same water. They don't all have the same type of cancer or even parents who work at the same factory.

State health officials have spent recent months asking the sick children and their families dozens of questions about their homes and health histories, hoping to find a link. A report due soon will reveal whether they found any connections among all or some of the children, Indian said.

Some parents think it's likely that investigators will never identify a cause.

In a way, it's not a surprise.

Pinpointing the cause of a cancer cluster rarely — if ever — happens.

During the 1960s and '70s, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated 108 cancer clusters around the United States, most of them childhood leukemia. But they found no definite causes for any of them.

The CDC has since allowed states to take the lead investigating almost all suspected clusters while still offering some oversight, as the federal agency is doing in Ohio.

The outbreak around Clyde is only 50 miles north of another cluster that Ohio health officials spent four years investigating. Beginning in the late 1990s, nine former students from River Valley High School in Marion were diagnosed with leukemia.

Tests found toxic chemicals in schoolyard soil and students were relocated to new buildings miles away. Investigators never definitively linked the cancers to the old school site, a former World War II Army depot where wastes and solvents were dumped and burned.

The nation's most intensive investigation ever of a cancer cluster began nine years ago in western Nevada and remains inconclusive. Hundreds of state and federal experts have spent millions investigating the leukemia that sickened 17 children and killed three between 1997 and 2004.

Some parents of Clyde area's sick children question whether the state's inquiry has been thorough enough. They point out that there's been no soil testing or requests for experts from CDC to join the investigation.

"Why haven't they brought all minds to the table?" said Warren Brown, whose 11-year-old daughter, Alexa, died of brain cancer in August 2009. "Why not throw everything at it?"

Investigators insist they've ignored nothing. Soil testing wouldn't reveal any answers, they said, because the sick children come from a widespread area and all would have needed to come in contact with contaminated dirt.

Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Christopher Korleski said the state has consulted with federal health officials throughout the investigation and that they've signed off on the steps Ohio has taken.

The investigation is his top priority.

"It is disappointing and frustrating to not know," said Korleski.

Brown wishes there were somebody to blame.

He's been careful not to point fingers and doesn't want the town to suffer. But he also said he wouldn't hold back if something here was the cause.

"I'd be yelling at the top of my lungs to leave town," he said. "I can't do that."

Brandy Kreider, a mother of five children, said she and her husband spent an agonizing week and sleepless nights wondering if they were making a mistake before buying a new home in town two years ago. In the end, leaving didn't feel right.

"Those things don't want to make us retreat," she said. "They bring us together."

The Hiseys faced the same question almost five years ago when daughter Tyler Smith, who's now 17, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

They put their house up for sale even though it had everything they wanted: ponds for fishing, a woods for hunting and plenty of space. They're now glad it didn't sell.

The outdoors surrounding their home has become a sanctuary for Tanner, 12, diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia two years after his sister was sickened.

Chemotherapy has kept him out of school most of this year so home is where he spends much of his time. It's where he can catch catfish, watch deer romp across the fields and still be a kid.

"Everything else has been taken away," his father said. "We can't take their support, their comfort and their home away from them."

Civil War message opened, decoded: No help coming by Steve Szkotak, Associated Press

In this Jan. 14, 2009 image shows a Civil War bottle with a message that was tucked inside at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. The messa AP – In this Jan. 14, 2009 image shows a Civil War bottle with a message that was tucked inside at the Museum …
By STEVE SZKOTAK, Associated Press Steve Szkotak, Associated Press – Sat Dec 25, 2010

RICHMOND, Va. – A glass vial stopped with a cork during the Civil War has been opened, revealing a coded message to the desperate Confederate commander in Vicksburg on the day the Mississippi city fell to Union forces 147 years ago.

The dispatch offered no hope to doomed Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton: Reinforcements are not on the way.

The encrypted, 6-line message was dated July 4, 1863, the date of Pemberton's surrender to Union forces led by Ulysses S. Grant, ending the Siege of Vicksburg in what historians say was a turning point midway into the Civil War.

The message is from a Confederate commander on the west side of the Mississippi River across from Pemberton.

"He's saying, 'I can't help you. I have no troops, I have no supplies, I have no way to get over there,' " Museum of the Confederacy collections manager Catherine M. Wright said of the author of the dispiriting message. "It was just another punctuation mark to just how desperate and dire everything was."

The bottle, less than 2 inches in length, had sat undisturbed at the museum since 1896. It was a gift from Capt. William A. Smith, of King George County, who served during the Vicksburg siege.

It was Wright who decided to investigate the contents of the strange little bottle containing a tightly wrapped note, a .38-caliber bullet and a white thread.

"Just sort of a curiosity thing," said Wright. "This notion of, do we have any idea what his message says?"

The answer was no.

Wright asked a local art conservator, Scott Nolley, to examine the clear vial before she attempted to open it. He looked at the bottle under an electron microscope and discovered that salt had bonded the cork tightly to the bottle's mouth. He put the bottle on a hotplate to expand the glass, used a scalpel to loosen the cork, then gently plucked it out with tweezers.

The sewing thread was looped around the 6 1/2-by-2 1/2-inch paper, which was folded to fit into the bottle. The rolled message was removed and taken to a paper conservator, who successfully unfurled the message.

But the coded message, which appears to be a random collection of letters, did not reveal itself immediately.

Eager to learn the meaning of the code, Wright took the message home for the weekend to decipher. She had no success.

A retired CIA code breaker, David Gaddy, was contacted, and he cracked the code in several weeks.

A Navy cryptologist independently confirmed Gaddy's interpretation. Cmdr. John B. Hunter, an information warfare officer, said he deciphered the code over two weeks while on deployment aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. A computer could have unscrambled the words in a fraction of the time.

"To me, it was not that difficult," he said. "I had fun with this and it took me longer than I should have."

The code is called the "Vigenere cipher," a centuries-old encryption in which letters of the alphabet are shifted a set number of places so an "a" would become a "d" — essentially, creating words with different letter combinations.

The code was widely used by Southern forces during the Civil War, according to Civil War Times Illustrated.

The source of the message was likely Maj. Gen. John G. Walker, of the Texas Division, who had under his command William Smith, the donor of the bottle.

The full text of the message to Pemberton reads:

"Gen'l Pemberton:

You can expect no help from this side of the river. Let Gen'l Johnston know, if possible, when you can attack the same point on the enemy's lines. Inform me also and I will endeavor to make a diversion. I have sent some caps (explosive devices). I subjoin a despatch from General Johnston."

The last line, Wright said, seems to suggest a separate delivery to Pemberton would be the code to break the message.

"The date of this message clearly indicates that this person has no idea that the city is about to be surrendered," she said.

The Johnston mention in the dispatch is Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, whose 32,000 troops were encamped south of Vicksburg and prevented from assisting Pemberton by Grant's 35,000 Union troops. Pemberton had held out hope that Johnston would eventually come to his aid.

The message was dispatched during an especially terrible time in Vicksburg. Grant was unsuccessful in defeating Pemberton's troops on two occasions, so the Union commander instead decided to encircle the city and block the flow of supplies or support.

Many in the city resorted to eating cats, dogs and leather. Soup was made from wallpaper paste.

After a six-week siege, Pemberton relented. Vicksburg, so scarred by the experience, refused to celebrate July 4 for the next 80 years.

So what about the bullet in the bottom of the bottle?

Wright suspects the messenger was instructed to toss the bottle into the river if Union troops intercepted his passage. The weight of the bullet would have carried the corked bottle to the bottom, she said.

For Pemberton, the bottle is symbolic of his lost cause: the bad news never made it to him.

The Confederate messenger probably arrived to the river's edge and saw a U.S. flag flying over the city.

"He figured out what was going on and said, 'Well, this is pointless,' and turned back," Wright said.

___

Online:

Museum of the Confederacy: http://www.moc.org

New ebook Available--Neale Sourna's Tad: The Switch-hitter, His Twink, and His Teacher--A Lust Novella (M/M/M)

Neale Sourna's North Coast Academies' Diary (NCAD),Vol. 4, Issue 1 [Vol. 4.1]

ISSN 1553-8656
Volume: 4
Number: 1
Neale Sourna’s North Coast Academies’ Diary

Tad: The Switch-hitter, His Twink, and His Teacher--A Lust Novella (M/M/M)

[edit]

“Undress me, Thaddeus.”

Yes!! I screamed within me, because he likes us to be controlled and civil, if not fully civilized, in his presence; I merely nodded, and began.

He has a lean, tight body; well-muscled and fine, and he swims, in the school pool, in Speedos™ swim trunks, and thank God for that sopping, dripping wet, minimal bit of material over his big, fleshy cock and fine, muscular ass.

It’s his best outfit. Fucking yes! And I’m not the only one in school who knows so.
But, I can’t say how many times I’ve imagined nor dreamed of Dr. Hupper coming out of the pool, water streaming heavily down his lean-sculpted, brown body, to stand in front of me, pull his meaty cock out of his clinging wet trunks, and command me to kneel and put its spongy fat mushroom head, into my hot, wet mouth.

His wish is my great eagerness.

After I hungrily taste him my first time, he seizes me by the hair and pushes his full, rigid length down my stretched throat, into my guts.

Then, having had me that way, he’d make me turn around on all fours to present my ass to him, and he’d, with ruthless force, tug down my dressy school trousers—somehow I always have them on, not trunks, or just be naked; huh, the illogic of dreams and even of daydreams full of fucking weird subconscious and emotional subtext.

Dr. Hupper would piss on and into my hole, his lube of choice, and then penetrate me, spear my tan ass wide with his black cock, right there at poolside, as the swim team practices their laps, as he, literally, rides my ass, banging his heavy, great, black balls against my own tan ones, until we both cum to our destinations.
Fuck dreams, this is real.

Dr. Hupper was bare to his dark, six pack waist. He reached up and pushed down on my taller shoulder, a gesture I’ve used with Cassie and other lucky cocksuckers of all sexes and cock - in - ass holders, oh, so many times.

I kneeled my paler, naked self down before him, in this worshipful reality not a fucking, frustrating dream, and undid his trousers, sliding them down, anticipating the dual pleasures of seeing that monster completely undressed and close to my face, in clear light, without a desk over my head, and to palm my fairer-skinned hands over his hard buttocks and down his flat belly and hard thighs, pushing his pants all the way down, as his ass-busting monster sprung out from his deliciously musky and hairy balls to kiss me.

God, it was gorgeous and he smelled great, and sexy. He made my mouth water.

[edit]

Dr. Hupper pushed his body into mine, his fat cock pulsing hot and deep in me, bare and hard, like he was trying to shove his entire slim, dark-skinned, muscular body inside of mine, cock fucking first into my bowels, until they’d burst out my belly with him.

He felt so damn good, too, throbbing hard with the pulse of his heart, squirting and squirting more and more of his lust cream into the center of me, warming my belly from the nether end this time, as my ass sphincter grasped and sucked on him—-the best its ever tasted.

And I should know, that his cum’s the best; since I’ve tasted and swallowed belly’s full of distilled Dr. Hupper love juice—-quarts and quarts.

He loves seeing me do it, too.

Extra credit, under his desk, like a fucking cheap whore, in case the janitor or principal has something to say to him.

[edit]

He blinked at the closest wall mirror, while gazing at me from it, his angry features softening, as if the visual I’d mentioned—of him with me, while I’m with Quen—-had finally just materialized before his mind’s eye and the sensual possibilities of it....

“You and Quen?” He looked at me, directly. “You? Sandwiched? Between us?”

All right. He was intrigued. I went to him, on my knees on his bed, his toy boy, play toy begging Master’s great favor and condescending indulgence.

Iago couldn’t have done better to seduce Othello.

“Sir, I’ll fuck Quen like he’s a wet, horny bitch, which he is, jam it in his pink, puckered shithole, his virgin pink hole between those slim, tight white halves of asscheeks, and stretch him wide, bang the boy, hard tan scrotum to tender pink scrotum, like he’s dreamed it.

“I’ll pound him to jelly, sir, make him cry for joy for the rough trade, right in front of you, for your eyes and pleasure only. And I’ll jerk his rosy cock and balls, so hard, they’ll explode like shrapnel when he blows his load, when I finally permit him to blow his aching load, totally controlling him, like you control me, like you just did; but you’ll .”

He looked over my shoulder and I’m pretty certain he was gazing at my asscheeks still rosy from his pounding, still slick with ass love gel. He smiled just a bit, like he does in class, pleased—-I bet he was thinking that my bowels were filled with his cream, marking his territory inside me.

“You’d be fucking that sweet, young boy, and I’d be fucking you, my cock whore, deep, again, in that snug and willing young ass of yours.”

That’s what I wanted to hear. I waited. Bottoms wait all the time for their Tops to catch the infection of their Bottoms’ desires.

He gazed a long time into my hazel brown eyes, shining bright for him, and I didn’t stare him down nor look away, until he finally jerked his chin at me, a gesture anyone in his class knows well.

It means, “Proceed.”

[edit]

Not more than ten minutes passed before someone knocked softly at the back door, like a cat scratching to get in. I let Quen in; he was rosy red cold and shivering; I’d brought him along with me, since Dr. Hupper’s place was pretty far away from home.

The busses are irregular for most suburbs this late in the evening, and Quen doesn’t have transportation.

I’d left him a few blocks away for our mentor’s safety—-two pretty teen boys slipping into his back door at the same time? That just screams sex.

My inferior, my fellow classmate, slim Quen, warmed to the matter, instantly with delight, to see me so close, completely naked, and smelling of man sex, as I led him through the kitchen into the dining room.

His tight, faux leather pants tented, and then nearly ripped apart at his inseam and zipper when beautiful Dr. Hupper and his naked black rod came into view.

I petted and gently squeezed Quen’s eager offering-—but not too hard a squeeze, I didn’t want him shooting off just yet; especially, if his skinny jeans hid the rocket explosion from view.

I petted the boy all over his body, as I peeled his jacket and tight clothes off his slim body, for Dr. Hupper’s viewing, revealing Quen’s nearly completely untanned, hairless, white skin with the “girl pink” nipples, as we call his nibs in school, where some of the guys find his nipple color “disturbing.”

Oh, yeah, I think that’s pretty funny and indicative of some kind of fear of possible latent homosexuality or latent bisexuality or whatever.

Personally, I always thought his rather large aureoles looked tasty and something I’d love to jack cum on one day, if not today. This evening we had so much to do, in so little time.

I’d tugged down his skintight pants and undies, his white ass even whiter than the rest of his so damn white skin, then took the boy’s stiff pink love toy in hand.
It was already maddened to a soft purple.

And it would be clear to anyone, if they’d been in the room or just outside a window peering in through the heavy and drawn draperies, that nearly swooning Quen was “putty in my hand.”

Hard putty—-a generous amount of it, for such a little guy.

Dr. Hupper came to us and I released Quen and pushed him, stumbling with his clothes tripping him, to our teacher, who slid his large black hand down the boy’s white, hairless belly, the pale skin turning rosy red with easy lust wherever we touched.

Then, Dr. Hupper felt around Quen’s young and eager cock, without touching it, feeling the soft, but firm texture of Quen’s hairless nads, like sweet, young fruit about to give up its tasty juice to anyone lucky enough to take it in warm hand and exploring fingers, squeezing gently, to test its ripenes .

“Ah!” Quen stiffened more, the tension spreading to his body, as if he were about to cum, just from such brief contact with an older man’s hand, our professor’s gentle and black manly hand.

Ah, the power of imagination, anticipation, and desire.

“You’re killing Quen, sir.”

“He’ll rise again, for us, won’t you, sweet, young Quen?”

“Uh-huhn, yesss. Pleesh.”

Already Quen couldn’t talk, as I took a hand to him, too, stroking his rosy rod, as we men both tightened our ruthless grip on the boy, making him rise up on his sneakered toes, tight pants and undies around his calves and ankles, as he went ever more rigid all over, unti—.

[edit, tons more…]

22 horny chapters, 25,139 words total

***Back Issues of “Neale Sourna’s North Coast Academies’ Diary” [NCAD] http://north.neale-sourna.com

[22 horny chapters, 25,139 words]

Gorgeous, biracial rich kid, Tad, gets whoever he wants, male or female, and he has a relentless hard on for his English professor, Dr. Hupper, whose magnificent black cock Tad's stuffed down his eager, tan-white throat and given hand jobs; but, youngster Tad wants serious, naked alone time with his favorite teacher's ebony body.

While fellow student, Quen "the queen," a blonde twink, whose smooth and hairless, boy toy ass virginity is reserved for Top Tad. Bottom boy Quen's in love and dying to be his doormat and cum catcher.

So, do you think delicious Tad will get BOTH of his conquests in one room, in one bed, all completely naked, with himself sandwiched between his Quen's sweet bottom and that masterful black assbuster?

Oh, I know my greedy Switch boy Tad will.
-----------------------------
Mutual handjob masturbation, in classroom, with teacher, after school, with hidden classmate voyeur Quen the queen twink watching; mild humiliation, as a teen Top gives his teen Bottom final permission to whack off, then lick cum off the scuffed class floor-yuck!;

An invitation to a favorite professor's sex hideaway for a little fuck fun, with black cock in biracial (white / black) teen student's tan ass;

A surprise for teach is teen Top bringing his teen twink Bottom, who gets his first ass filling, sucks his Top's tan cock in front of prof and then gets to be bottom layer, on his back, of a three-way male sandwich of white bread ass, thick tan meat, and long, black cock.

Plenty of cocksucking, assfucking, ball banging, and squirting, creamy cum!

These naughty boys put on a great show and are insatiable, even when they're fucked red raw, they want more, in the shower, in the car home, in the garage with the Top, his Twink, and his hard cocked Top Twin.

Plus, a couple of hot, golden showers and a sexy real shower or two.

22 horny chapters, 25,139 words total
All On Sale NOW: MS Reader, Mobipocket / Kindle and other formats coming soon!